A String of Bad Luck

In Utah, Scott came over to Mom and Dad's house and told us about their 12 disasters of 2012--horrible things like breaking a very expensive camera lens, getting their mini van totaled, having all their kids throwing up in a hotel room, and sitting in the ER for kidney stones only to hear a person kill herself in the lobby.

10 days into 2013, we wondered if Scott somehow passed on his bad luck to us in a Freaky Friday fashion.  No, nothing as awful as his events, but ridiculous enough to write about.

Kate threw up one morning of our trip.  We didn't think much of it--she gagged herself with her finger and we thought she was probably not even sick.  Two days later, we got on an airplane to head back to Kauai.  We flew to Portland with no problems, but 30 minutes into our flight to Kauai, Zac sat up abruptly and started to cry.  I don't know why I thought to do this, but I grabbed a barf bag and barf he did--for the first time in his life!--filling that thing to capacity.  The flight attendant seemed pretty annoyed with us, but we had no idea he was sick when we got on that plane.  We wondered how the next 5 1/2 hours would go with our obviously sick boy.  (Luckily, it was a one time deal.)

Mary picked us up from the airport.  On the way home, she let us know that our car wouldn't start initially and Chad had to jump it.  We hoped that was all there was to it, but the next day, of course it was dead.  I spent the day before our move frantically running to town and getting a new battery, in addition putting away all the lose ends of our house, cleaning, and unpacking from Utah.

We stayed up really late that night, because no matter how much preparation you do, the night before your move is a long one.  At 2am, the smoke alarms went off and woke everyone up. 

At 4am, I started to throw up.

I felt awful--no question I was very sick--but I knew the kids had both thrown up one time.  I figured that the pain of it all would disappear in a few hours and I would function on some level for our move.

15 episodes later, I knew I was toast for the day.  Brady missed a bunch of appointments for work that morning, because there was no way I could possibly watch Kate.  He enlisted the help of our friends to watch our kids, and Mary played my role for the move--feeding the movers, guessing where to put boxes, etc.  We are so grateful for good friends that bailed us out!!

The guys came to move us at 4pm.  It poured rain on all our stuff.  Awesome.

I slept 20 of the 24 hours of that day.  I don't know if I've ever slept so much and felt so guilty at the same time!  I woke up the next morning and could barely stand.  I was dizzy, dehydrated, and still felt queasy.  Our check out cleaning had to get done that morning, though, so we drove to the other house and worked.  We got it all completely done in about 4 hours, and headed to town for some essentials in our new house.  At this point, I thought I was better, but on the way home....well, that became day 2 of the tummy troubles.

I should mention that I drove our (new-ish) Pathfinder to the house that morning and parked it in front of the house.  I did not realize there were rocks lining the grass, and I scraped the bottom of my car up pretty handily.  We even worried if I caused an oil leak because we saw residue on the driveway (it is not us).

While unpacking boxes the following day, we dropped our ice cream maker.  The casing cracked and it was a bad situation fast.  The alcohol smell exploded throughout the house and we spent ages cleaning it up.  Disaster averted, but it could have ruined part of the floor if we had not caught it so quickly.  (There is no damage at all, thankfully!!)

I was sick for 3 more days.  I don't know why this stuck around so long, but I started to wonder what if felt like to feel normal, and I even worried if this was as good as I'd feel.  In the meantime, Brady worked to catch up at work, and then spent long hours unpacking us every night.  Raw deal for him!

What else?

A few days later, I was on a plane to Oahu.  I had doctor appointments, but I also had tickets with some friends to see "Wicked."  This was before our trip to Utah ever got planned, so thus the back-to-back travel weekends.  Everything was going smooth.  The girls and I were out to dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant, and left with an hour to make it about five or six blocks.

Me and Megan (this is my first meal ever where I ate with chopsticks the entire time):

Hilary and Genevieve:

Yay for Oahu, because we got desperately stuck in traffic.  With 15 minutes to go before showtime, we realized we were not going to make it.  The girls convinced me--the ever-cautious, never take risks, turn-on-my-blinker-way-too-early, never speed gal--to drive like a Jedi warrior with U-turns, slipping into lanes uninvited, and bulldozing my way into a parking garage.  (I would be lying if I said I wasn't a tiny bit proud of how well it all went down, but I never want to do that again.  I'm decidedly a country girl when it comes to driving.)

We jumped out of the car and sprinted in boots and heels for 11 minutes straight.  I couldn't shake the feeling that I left something--did I leave my purse? (no), did I lock the car? (yes), or what was it?  I didn't have time to find out because we worried that if we missed the opening number, we would not be allowed in until intermission.

At one minute until show time, we went through security lines, and got through the gate.  We were smiling and happy about our good fortune and sprinting, when the guard told us that we were not at "Wicked."  Instead, we were at a "Chicago" concert.  "Wicked" was at the same complex of buildings, but a solid 4 minute run away.  Now we were really freaking out.  I ran along singing, "You're the meaning in my life, you're the inspiration," but I think the other gals were too stressed out to realize how hilarious it was.  Ha! 

It was unfortunate that I drank 8 glasses of water at dinner, because we did make it before the doors were locked, but I sat for an hour and a half thinking I might bust.

The show was awesome--so very entertaining!  We laughed and talked all the way back to the car.

Here we are after the show:

The car was dead.  I left the lights on.  Awesome.  It was 11:35pm in the middle of the city with no one around.  We tried to find someone with jumper cables, but everyone was a tourist.  Instead, Megan and Genevieve walked a few blocks to Walmart and bought some.  In the meantime, Hilary and I continued to try and find someone to jump the car, but with no success.  When the girls got back, we finally found someone willing to help a girl out and we got on the road at 1am.

The string of luck is over--at least for this post--and I'm going to try hard not to look for things in our lives that signify bad luck.  We're done!  Passing it on to the next unfortunate person.

Megan was taking me on a hike at 2:30am the next morning (long story, but you have to get there early), but the girl is 4.5 months pregnant and there was no way I could let her get one hour of sleep.  Instead, we went on a hike to Maunawili falls at a normal time of day, and had a great time hiking through the muddy forest to the swim hole.  I saw a bunch guys jumping off the cliff and thought there was no way I had the guts to do that.  The thing is, though, I went to Oahu looking for a bit of adventure, and it's hard to pass up something like that, especially with Megan by my side.  So, I asked the locals all about it, watched a bunch of them do it, and then I hiked up there and took the plunge.  A girl filming her boyfriend also caught me on her phone, and sent it my way.  It is not nearly as impressive to watch as it felt.  It is 30 feet, and I think my limit for jumping off things is now 30 feet.  As I said at the end of the video, I am not the girl that jumps off things!

 Right after the hike.  Oh, I miss my friend Megan.  She is always up for an adventure.

 We went to a Thai restaurant for lunch, and then spent some time at TARGET!!  Yes, Target is a very exciting store to someone like me, stuck with only the limited options of a small WalMart.  I jumped on a plane back home to my husband that I owe big for watching our kids and continuing to move us in.

I've learned a few things from these past few weeks.  First, we are incredibly lucky to have friends out here who will watch our kids and move us in at the drop of a pin.  Not just watch them, but love them.  Lucky, lucky, lucky.  We are also fortunate to have friends willing to do huge favors for us (like bring us dinner while I was still sick).  Second, we don't have a lot of unfortunate things happen, so when a few things in a row don't go our way, I'm bratty enough to write an entire post about it.  Third, I may be gutsy with some outdoor adventures, but asking people to jump the car was the hardest thing I've done in years.  I hated it.  I have no guts at all, and it is lucky Hilary was there to be assertive and ask for help.  Fourth, I love our new house.  It is gorgeous.  The only problem is, it's not Poipu, and I think I left my heart in Poipu.  I'll get over it and I will love it here, too.  But I did cry a few times about this.  Pitiful, huh?  Finally, moving right after vacation just adds to the vacation blues.  I was so sad for a whole week about living far from family.  Thankfully, that's when all our friends stepped in and made me realize they are, in fact, our family, too.  Grateful and a little sad, but mostly grateful.